This invention relates to television advertising, and, more particularly, to techniques for advertising television networks, channels, and programs.
The practice of advertising television networks, channels, and programs has become widespread. For example, an advertisement for a network or channel may promote the network or channel generally or a particular line-up of television programs on that network or channel. Similarly, an advertisement for a television program may promote the program generally or a particular episode or particular episodes of that program.
Advertisements for television networks, channels, and programs have been delivered to television viewers in a variety of ways. For example, advertisements have been delivered by using standard television commercial time slots in television programs to present the advertisements to television viewers. The advertisements delivered in such standard television commercial time slots for television networks and channels have been delivered on both the same and different networks and channels from those being advertised. Similarly, the advertisements for television programs delivered in standard television commercial time slots have been delivered during both the same and different television programs from those being advertised.
As another example, barker television screens have also been used to present advertisements to television viewers over channels that are otherwise unused by television systems. The advertisements delivered on such barker television screens have been presented in a variety of formats including full motion video (including audio), still images, graphics, and text.
As yet another example, passive program guides that provide television program information to television viewers on dedicated television channels have been used to present advertisements. More recently, interactive television program guides have been developed that are similarly capable of delivering advertising for various types of programming. The advertisements delivered by such passive and interactive program guides have been presented in a variety of formats including full motion video (including audio), still images, graphics, and text.
A problem with television advertising is that in certain circumstances the advertisement for a network, channel, or program may be wasted if the network, channel, or program is unavailable to or undesired by a television viewer. For example, an advertisement presented to a viewer of a news channel for a comedy channel may be wasted if the comedy channel is unavailable to the viewer. As another example, an advertisement for an adult television channel may be wasted when presented to a television viewer who has opted to block out the programming available on the adult television channel in the viewer""s home.
As yet another example, an advertisement for a program on a network may be wasted if the local affiliate for that network has chosen not to present the advertised program. As still another example, where a channel on a television system is split by the system operator between a first programming provider during one portion of the day and a second programming provider during another portion of the day, an advertisement for a program provided by the first programming provider may be wasted if the program is to be aired during the second programming provider""s portion of the day. As a further example, where a channel produced by a programming provider is affiliated with a first network during one portion of the day and a second network during another portion of the day, an advertisement for a program on the first network may be wasted if the program is to be aired during the second network""s portion of the day.
Rather than wasting an advertising opportunity by presenting an advertisement for a network, channel, or program that is unavailable to or undesired by a television viewer, it may be preferred to present an advertisement for a network, channel, or program that is available to or desired by a television viewer, or some other advertisement.
A problem associated with providing television advertising in program guides is that in order to present an advertisement for a network or a program to be aired on a network, a separate copy of the advertisement for each of the affiliates of the network must be broadcast to the television systems in which the advertisement is to be aired. This repetitive broadcasting must be performed so that each television system receives a copy of the advertisement that is associated with the affiliate of the advertised network carried by the television system. Because the size of typical advertisements that contain graphics may be on the order of several kilobytes, however, broadcasting a separate copy of the advertisement for each affiliate of large networks may be inefficient. For example, for a program guide advertisement having a size of six kilobytes that is to be advertised in association with a network having three hundred affiliates, the broadcasting of that advertisement alone would require the broadcasting of one thousand, eight hundred kilobytes of data.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide systems and methods for advertising television networks, channels, and programs that prevent advertisements from being displayed for networks, channels, and programs that are unavailable to television viewers.
It is also an object of the invention to provide systems and methods for advertising television networks, channels, and programs that prevent advertisements from being displayed for networks, channels, and programs that are undesired by television viewers.
It is a further object of the invention to provide systems and methods for advertising television networks, channels, and programs that prevent advertisements of network programs from being displayed when those programs are not aired by the local affiliates of the corresponding networks.
It is a yet further object of the invention to provide systems and methods for advertising television networks, channels, and programs that prevent advertisements of programs from being displayed when those programs are to be aired during a portion of the day when the program provider or network associated with the program is not available to television viewers.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide systems and methods for advertising television networks, channels, and programs that do not require the repetitive broadcasting, for each affiliate of a network, of advertisements for that network, or a program to be aired on that network, to those television systems carrying the advertisements.
These and other objects of the invention are accomplished in accordance with the principles of the invention by providing systems and methods that control the presentation of advertisements to television viewers based upon the networks, channels, and programs which are available to the viewers and based upon whether those networks, channels, and programs are indicated by the viewers to be undesirable. Additionally, in preferred embodiments of these systems and methods, only a single broadcast of each advertisement that is associated with a network (or a program on a network) and a network identifier is performed for all television systems. Once received, the network identifier is used to determine whether the advertisement is to be presented to the viewers of each television system.
The systems and methods of the present invention preferably control the presentation of advertisements by determining at television viewer equipment whether the advertisements are associated with television networks, channels, or programs that may be unavailable to the television viewer or that may be undesirable to the television viewer. Once this determination has been made, the television viewer equipment then preferably presents the advertisements, or selects and presents suitable alternative advertisements. Advertisements may be presented using any suitable technique such as by presenting full motion video (including audio), still images, graphics, and text, during standard television commercial time slots, on barker screens, in passive or interactive program guide advertisements, or using any other suitable advertising method.
The television viewer equipment of the systems and methods of the present invention is preferably a television set-top box coupled to a television, although videocassette recorders (VCRs), advanced television receivers, personal computer televisions (PC/TVS), and any other suitable equipment that has sufficient hardware to perform the same processing and display functions provided by a television set-top box and television may also be used.
The television viewer equipment preferably receives transmissions of data such as advertisements and advertisement control information, program guide information, and channel map information from a main facility, a television distribution facility, or network nodes within a television system. At the television viewer equipment, this data may be used by an interactive television program guide or other suitable application, possibly with additional data stored in the television viewer equipment (such as channel block-out information), to determine whether an advertisement is to be presented to the television viewer.
For example, the program guide or other application may determine that an advertisement that was intended to be presented on the channel xe2x80x9cCNNxe2x80x9d for a program to be aired on the channel xe2x80x9cWTBSxe2x80x9d is not to be presented if xe2x80x9cWTBSxe2x80x9d is not available in the television system, even though xe2x80x9cCNNxe2x80x9d is available. In this example, it may be determined that the advertisement is associated with xe2x80x9cWTBSxe2x80x9d from advertisement control information that accompanies the advertisement, or by searching for the program being advertised in program guide information stored in the television viewer equipment and retrieving the corresponding channel information. The determination that xe2x80x9cWTBSxe2x80x9d is unavailable to the viewer may be made by consulting channel map information stored in the television viewer equipment or by referring to channel information in program guide information stored in the television viewer equipment. Finally, once the determination of whether the advertisement is to be presented has been made, the advertisement can be presented to the television viewer or a suitable alternative advertisement can be identified and presented.
In order to avoid redundantly broadcasting an advertisement that is associated with a network (or a program to be aired on a network) to each television system carrying the advertisement for each affiliate of that network, the advertisement and a network identifier are preferably broadcast only once to all television viewer equipment in the television systems. The advertisement and the network identifier are received at the television viewer equipment. Using the network identifier and channel map or program guide information located in the television viewer equipment, an interactive program guide or other application running in the television viewer equipment determines whether a local affiliate for that network is available and has not been designated as undesirable by a television viewer. If the local affiliate is available and has not been designated as undesirable, the advertisement is presented to the television viewer. If a local affiliate for that network is not available or the only local affiliate available for that network has been designated as undesirable by the television viewer, a suitable alternative advertisement is identified and presented to the television viewer.
Further features of the invention, its nature and various advantages will be more apparent from the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.